Jubilee Thoughts

I had been worried that I would not enjoy the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee — not because I lacked enthusiasm for the occasion, but because I feared that the national celebration would not do it justice.  There is an impression often given by the purveyors of mainstream or at least mass culture, that they think the Crown exists merely on licence, so to speak, and that they are entitled to permit it to survive solely in the measure that it conforms to the tone, the language and the beliefs of secular modernity.  I worried too that the general inability of our culture to take anything seriously would drain the whole Jubilee of the solemnity, of the mystery, that underlies the celebration.  

Many of these fears did materialise, at least in part, but one way and another I found myself not minding too much.  At least, it certainly did not spoil a thoroughly enjoyable weekend which left me with plenty of happy memories.  There were some wonderful occasions which seemed to capture the spirit of the celebration marvellously — the lighting of the Jubilee beacons on a local summit of suburban south London, and a trip to Windsor to see a flotilla of barges and a display of classic cars — and in general it was heartening to see proper cheerful Union Jacks hung from houses and to know that people were making merry and having a good time together.  The flypast and Trooping the Colour (seen via television) were magnificent; the service at Westminster Abbey was dignified and beautiful.  There was also, on BBC Four, the very moving and warmly recommended programme ‘The Unseen Queen’: a compilation, presented by the Queen herself, of personal cine-films from her early life.  My strong impression was that Her Majesty intended this film less as an autobiography than as a tribute to her father George VI.

This Jubilee was the first chance for a national celebration we have had for some time — indeed for far too long.  The pandemic is the obvious cause of this drought, but we have had other troubles too.  Immediately before that we had had a great deal of understandable disagreement over the result of the European Union referendum, wrangling which, in retrospect, feels like something whose development and duration ought to have been expected but which, until the General Election in 2019, felt as if it would never end.  As it was, we went into the pandemic without those divisions properly healed.  The pandemic itself might have brought about a degree of unity, but of course not for celebration — and even that unity began, probably inevitably, to break down.  Then, during that strange and disturbing summer of 2020, partly, I think, in revenge for the referendum result, advantage was taken of our mutual isolation to push radical and alarming political agendas to the very top of non-political institutions.  So, all in all, for quite some time we have not been ourselves, and have been in need of a cause for proper and convivial unity, a chance for some national sentiment — and our Queen’s unwavering reign gave us one.

How long the good sentiments will last I do not know.  The Queen by her own example makes it clear to us what sort of a country, what sort of a people, she believes we ought to be.  Too many of us pretend not to hear her.  She must know — and, deep down, so must we — that she has been a better Queen to us than we have been subjects to her.  Rather like a grandmother who never ceases to love the grandchildren who have turned their backs on her and all her wisdom, she says no word of reproach, but neither does she concede one shred of principle.  Those of us who still believe in the old values, the eternal verities, hear and understand her, and we will keep her words in mind long after the bunting has been taken down.

For what we are celebrating — the mystery beneath the merriment — is the fulfilment of a great vow.  The Jubilee reminds us, among other things, that such achievements, such greatnesses, remain possible.  It is a wondrous and a fearsome truth, and reason for heartfelt thanksgiving.